Lies (Gone 3)

No way she could have known, she told herself as she panted and yanked and her heart pounded from the fear of what she would see when she reached Clifftop.

No way she could have known that the game was real. That it had become real when the last battery died. And that Little Pete’s opponent in the game was no program on a microchip, but the gaiaphage.

It had reached Little Pete. It wasn’t the first time. Somehow, in some way she might never be able to grasp, the two greatest powers of the FAYZ were linked.

The gaiaphage had tricked Little Pete. It had used Little Pete’s own vast power to give life to its avatar, Nerezza.

Orsay, too, had once touched the mind of the gaiaphage. It was like an infection—once you had touched that restless evil mind, it had some kind of hold over you. A hook buried in your mind.

Sam had said Lana could still feel the gaiaphage inside her. She still wasn’t free of it. But Lana had known it, been aware of it. Maybe that had given her a defense. Or maybe the gaiaphage simply didn’t need her anymore.

They reached the road to Clifftop.

But the way forward was blocked by what looked like a tornado. A tornado named Dekka.

Dekka raised the whirlwind before her and walked steadily.

BLAM!

A stab of fire barely visible through the flying, swirling debris.

“Get her! Get the freak!” Zil bellowed.

Dekka kept moving, ignoring the pain in her legs, ignoring the slosh of blood filling her shoes.

Someone was running up behind her. She yelled back over her shoulder without looking, “Stay back, you idiot!”

“Dekka!” Astrid’s voice.

She came at a run, yanking her weird little brother along behind her.

“Not a good time for you to yell at me, Astrid!” Dekka yelled.

“Dekka. We have to get to the cliff.”

“I’m going wherever Zil is,” Dekka said. “I have a right to defend myself. He started this fight.”

“Listen to me,” Astrid said urgently. “I’m not trying to stop you. I’m telling you to hurry. We have to get through. Now!”

“What? What’s happening?”

“Murder,” Astrid said. “We have to get through. You have to get through!”

Someone came running at them from the side. He stepped too close to the weightless zone and went flying up, head over heels, spinning slowly.

He fired as he rose. Gun banging in random directions.

But now they were circling around behind her. They moved cautiously, far outside her field. She could see them scurrying from bush to hillock to cactus.

A bullet whizzed so close by her ear she thought it might have hit her.

“Get back, Astrid!” Dekka said. “I’m doing all I can.”

“Do whatever it takes,” Astrid said.

“If I take Zil out the rest will run.”

“Then take him out,” Astrid said.